Letter from America: The future of Zim education (3)

These thinkers forget that man is in a state of war against his neighbour from birth. If not controlled by religion, he must be subdued by force.

CD Heath, a Californian publisher, foresaw the enormous changes that civil rights legislation of 1964 would bring to future generations.

Fiercely resisted, Heath surmised that if publishers quietly included those ideas into the school curriculum, it was only a matter of time before the new generation overthrew the ancient regime.

At that time (1965), the American Psychological Association quietly removed the stigma associated with homosexual behaviour from their manual, adding that the behaviour itself was not a malady, but a normal orientation.

American progressives have continued to manufacture new agendas and to foist them on the populace through the curriculum.

In many ways, Americans are always forward looking, challenging old ways, and perennial seekers for the elixir of life.

In 1954, Benjamin Spock, wrote a book about raising children. Here are three of his wildest propositions. Don’t force potty training. Allow children to grow up naturally in their nappies (perhaps up to five years). They will grow out of them naturally, at their own pace.

Another proposition helped the baby chair manufacturers. Ensconced in a baby chair, a child plays with food, even throwing it on the floor, until they learn better.

The most disastrous proposition was that spanking children is a form of violence. This was interpreted by school boards and social welfare entities to suggest that parents should reason with their two year olds.

“It’s not nice to kick others, Anthony, now say you are sorry.”

As a result, American children are the most spoiled and prone to misbehaviour at schools.

Further, children must be treated with dignity. No negative verbs or phrases should be used.

I mentored a high school boy who refused to learn his mathematics table. The mother filed a complaint when the rascal received an incomplete grade. The student was awarded a 65 percent for refusing to do his work.

As Christian men, we have imposed upon ourselves the burden of mentoring at least one “man-child” per adult male.

My nine-year old mentee was suspended for a week for calling a teacher  “ugly” behind her back.

A physical exercise teacher was swiped by an aggressive boy, flooring him and causing blood to flow from his teeth. The matter was never settled. Our “brothers” wanted an investigation into the teacher’s racial history. The student remained in the school, a hero.

As I speak, a grade four teacher has been suspended. Two girls were fighting, and in trying to separate them, the teacher touched one of the protagonists. The charge was that: “She pushed me!” A teacher cannot push a child, even if that teacher is given a thorough beating by the child. Refusing a child food is called “starvation”, a very serious crime.

The Zimbabwe High Court ruled, in accordance with Spock’s posturing, that “imposition of corporal punishment and any form of physical punishment by any person or person’s including teachers, parents or relatives is ultra vires the provision of Section 81, 51, and 53 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.”

There is a rule in journalism not to contradict or speak ill of a judge or judgment. I can only propose that the superior judges will allow their much learning to be tempered by wisdom.

Wisdom only comes inside the package of religious sensibility. Outside that sensibility, there is no hope (salust nulla.)

The Zimbabwe Christian Leadership Network rightly points out that the nature of the “family is on the spotlight. It may undergo a revolution.”

The family (or Abraham’s extended) depends for its glue on the parents’ authority over their dependents.

The Christian (Old Testament) attitude; “Honour thy father and thy mother, so that your days may be long on earth,” is congruent with Ubuntu.

A father, vexed by a progeny, may break a water gourd (kupwanya mukombe) at his father’s gravestone, guaranteeing a troubled life for the offender.

 Spock was articulating an agenda already projected since 1917 by British Theosophists, Petrovna Blavatsky and Alice Bailey.

Abolition of corporal punishment is item number two. Teachers are to tell children that parents have no right to compel them to attend church, or to pray.

They must be allowed self-expression, self-realisation and self-fulfillment.

A parent cannot apply any form of punishment on a 13 year-old child found exercising his sexual self-actualisation with a partner on the parents’ bed.

A Muslin family in Texas, after warning their girl child not to keep a boyfriend in her room overnight, lost patience. They would be imprisoned if they denied the miscreant food, or shelter.

The tragedy that followed is unspeakable.

The next frontier for these Philistines is the non-gender programme. In the January issue of National Geographic, the cover child is a non-gender.

Nasreen Sheikh, a Pakistani child says: “If I were a boy, I would have the chance to make money and to wear good clothes.”

Girls are “pulled out of school, are subject to genital mutilation, child marriage, and sexual assault.”

The argument is reasonable. Therefore, we must abolish gender-based society. I rest my case.